Iraq – Getting Worse

Iraq – Getting Worse

July 25, 2006

Last November, the Senate declared 2006 "to be a period of significant transition for Iraq" and called on President Bush to put forward a strategy for "the successful completion of the mission in Iraq." A recent study by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, however, found the President's plan to be "incomplete." Our failures in Iraq carry a high price. In the first half of 2006, more than 14,000 Iraqis and more than 350 U.S. troops have been killed in the war. The Bush administration will use today's visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to tout progress in Iraq, but his visit underscores the failure of the administration to make any significant transitions in 2006.

• Maliki’s unity government has yet to prove its mettle. When Maliki's new unity government was sworn in two months ago, it was hailed as an "opportunity for genuine reconciliation" and a development that could lead to a "great improvement in the security situation" and prevent a civil war. But as The Washington Post notes today, "Maliki appears close to failing that fateful test." Nearly 6,000 Iraqis were killed in May and June and violence has increased since the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June. On the political front, Maliki presides over a weak government that has yet to resolve issues of federalism and distribution of oil revenue, and has not yet stepped forward to "improve security and the quality of life" for average Iraqis.
  
  
• Iraqis feel less secure going about their daily routines. The security situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate. Security in seven of 18 provinces is serious or critical, whereas only three provinces are reported stable. While the insurgency has grown from 5,000 fighters in 2003 to more than 20,000 currently, "sectarian violence is a greater threat than the Sunni insurgency." Not surprisingly, a late June poll sponsored by the International Republican Institute found that three quarters of Iraqis rate security conditions as "poor" and 51 percent said the security situation had worsened in the last six months. Maliki acknowledged that if the sectarian violence doesn't abate, "there will be no Iraq left."
  
  
• Reconstruction efforts are still in shambles. Bush administration officials recently bragged about the "positive developments” in Iraq such as the "highest oil production and export levels since before the war." But production still remains below prewar levels. Additionally, Baghdad has just eight hours of electricity a day, well below its prewar levels of 16-24 hours. Unemployment is the highest in the region – 30-40 percent – and one in three Iraqi children suffers from malnutrition. The U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that U.S. mismanagement and incompetence impeded Iraq's reconstruction and a top U.S. government auditor estimated it will take another $50 billion in additional aid to rebuild the country's oil industry and restore electricity generation to prewar levels.